PAS-C01 Operations and Maintenance Practice Question
A company uses AWS Config to record resource changes and evaluate rules. Recently, the compliance status of an S3 bucket rule changed from COMPLIANT to NON_COMPLIANT. The operations team investigates and finds that the bucket policy was modified. What is the MOST efficient way to identify who made the change and the exact time?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse AWS Config's configuration timeline (which shows what changed and when, but not who) with CloudTrail's audit trail (which shows who made the API call), leading them to incorrectly select Option C.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Search AWS CloudTrail event history for PutBucketPolicy events for the S3 bucket.
AWS CloudTrail captures all API calls made to AWS services, including S3 bucket policy modifications via the PutBucketPolicy API. By searching the CloudTrail event history for PutBucketPolicy events filtered by the specific S3 bucket ARN, you can directly identify the IAM user or role that made the change, along with the exact timestamp. This is the most efficient method because it provides a complete audit trail of API activity without requiring additional logging setup or parsing.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Examine the S3 server access logs for the bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Server access logs do not include management API calls.
- ✓
Search AWS CloudTrail event history for PutBucketPolicy events for the S3 bucket.
Why this is correct
CloudTrail records all API calls with details.
- ✗
Review the configuration timeline in AWS Config for the S3 bucket.
Why it's wrong here
Config shows the changes but not the user identity.
- ✗
Use AWS Systems Manager Automation to run a script that checks CloudWatch Logs.
Why it's wrong here
Inefficient and not the direct tool.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PAS-C01 exam.